Two German States Holding Elections

TONY CZUCZKA

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, February 1, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party battled for the peace vote in two state elections Sunday, but even Germany's opposition to war in Iraq appeared unlikely to avert a stinging defeat for the Social Democrats.

Voters choosing two new state legislatures Sunday were expected instead to punish Schroeder's party for post-election tax hikes, rising unemployment and a listless economy.

Polls indicated the Social Democrats would lose in Schroeder's home state of Lower Saxony and in Hesse. Schroeder tried to mobilize left-leaning voters by touting his defiance of U.S. pressure for war and his view that Germany is obliged to seek peaceful solutions because of its militaristic past.

"My mandate, as I see it, is to fight for it with all my might that conflicts everywhere in the world are resolved in this way _ and in no other," Schroeder told his party's closing rally Friday in Hanover, the Lower Saxony capital.

About 10 million people were eligible to vote in the first test at the polls for Schroeder since he was narrowly returned to power in national elections last September. Scroeder's adamant anti-war stance played a large part in his victory.

A double defeat for the Social Democrats could increase pressure from the conservative opposition and inside Schroeder's party for bolder economic reforms, such as loosening the tightly regulated labor market and trimming social benefits.

Schroeder's party has ruled out personnel changes at the national level, where the Social Democrats govern with the junior Greens party of Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

"The Schroeder-Fischer administration will stay," Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrats' secretary-general, told the weekend edition of the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Polls before Sunday's voting showed the Social Democrats losing control of the statehouse in Lower Saxony, where Schroeder governed for more than eight years before becoming chancellor.

The polls also predicted that Hesse's Christian Democrat-led government, scathed in 2000 by a slush fund scandal surrounding former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, would consolidate power.

The latest poll gave the Social Democrats 35 percent voter support in Lower Saxony and the Christian Democrats 48 percent, which would nearly reverse support for the two main parties compared to the last election five years ago.

In Hesse, the poll showed Christian Democrats surging to 51 percent from 43 percent four years ago, with the Social Democrats going to 29 percent from 39 percent.

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The Forsa poll, published Wednesday, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.